Career Coach Office Hours: August 9 2022 | JobSearchTV.com
By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
I answered questions about #jobsearch #hiringstaff #management #leadership #workplace issues. Join me at 1 PM Eastern on Tuesdays and Fridays. You can also message me on Linkedin before the show and I will answer it, too. #careercoachofficehours #careercoaching #careercoach #jobsearchtips #jobsearchadvice #interviews #hiring #managingpeople #leadershipskills #linkedinlive #linkedinlivestreams
The Warning Sign of a Problem or That They Aren’t Sure
03:22
What was the common denominator seen in some past resumes that prompted you to arrange for an interview with the person within minutes? So part of that is timing. You know, I happen to have a moment where I’m going to peek at a resume, instead of interviewing someone or talking to someone in my old office because I don’t do recruiting anymore. I coach people, but I did recruiting for a long time. And thus, what would make me look is, number one, timing, as I had a few available minutes, and I went holy cow, this person is perfect!’ The background look right, the branding of the employer. This is one that people don’t really talk about all that often. But there’s a difference between someone who works for a well known well regarded brand, someone who consults to that well known well regarded brand, and someone who works for, what I always refer to as three guys in a garage and they claim to be doing the work, but they rarely actually did. And there are exceptions to this. But in terms of what got me to contact someone within minutes to arrange for an interview, someone who worked for a world class firm who feel like it was plug and play for my world class client, had the right background, was at the rights level. I’d have to verify the compensation they were looking for. I stopped doing recruiting during a time where I still could legally ask what a person was currently earning and what they were looking for. But ultimately, the conversation would have to include what a person was looking for being within budget for my client. So those are those
kinds of things that would prompt me to contact someone within minutes in order to bring them in for an interview.
05:52
What is the best way to inspire younger people to stay at your company? Great work, great pay, relationship, opportunity to learn from someone who seems to care about them. Because one of the things that’s happened in many countries in many cultures is that people feel like they don’t matter. Their work doesn’t matter. Yes, they have to get it done and has to be on time and all that sort of stuff. Let’s concede all that. But no one gives a darn about them. No one mentors them, no one guides them, no one teaches them, no one inspires them. They are the third drone on the 52nd floor in the fourth cubicle from the back. That’s how bad it feels for many people. That’s not just simply young people. But it’s people older and younger. So when people don’t feel like they, anyone cares about them, if they’re going to get the same salary increases as the person who doesn’t care, who does mediocre work, there’s a message and people spot it regularly. So what’s the best way to inspire young people to stay at your company. So I’m going to pick up on the word inspire. Inspire is the magic word. And each person’s a little bit different. A man named Lance Secretan defines the difference between inspire and motivate. Inspire is to light a fire within someone; motivate is to light a fire underneath someone. No one wants to feel motivated. And often, managers are asked the question, ‘how do you motivate your people,’ and it starts off with I have to hire them better. If I have to motivate them. I also have to remove friction from them in order to motivate them because what’s ultimately happened is a lot of promises that were made to someone have gone by the boards. People know it and they feel like they were conned and lied to. The romance has gone out of the relationship. So the best way to inspire people is to never make them feel like you don’t care. The best way to inspire them is to light the fire within each of them. That will help them be great. If you if you’ve ever watched my videos or lwatched my live streams, you know, I end the show by saying ‘be great.’ And I do that because too often people are being persuaded to be mediocre. Institutions and their systems want to deal with business transformation, which is a homegenized solution to everything that occurs. They don’t feel any individuality. We live in a climate where all our tech appeals to us individually and then organizations want to homogenize us. So inspire them. Light the fire within them. Believe in them. Encourage them. Kick their butt when they need it because that shows that you care. You can’t do it every hour of every day, but that they matter to you is very very important.
10 Signs Your Interview Will Go Nowhere
11:04
If a person is looking for a new job, should they list their current job on their resume or leave it off, since it might not reflect well on them, if they’re looking to switch fields. Switch fields. I’m thinking that you’re looking to change careers into something different. But I’ll just say, if you work for a no name brand, and you’ve been there for a while, you can’t take it off, because otherwise people will think that you’re either out of work, or that you’re trying to fool them into thinking that you’re not available for them. So the goal here is to be forthright. If you’re working for a bad brand, then you’re going to be in trouble because eventually they’re going to ask who you’re working for. You got to put it on an application, and people will find out that as well. So the goal here is to basically present yourself in the best light possible. So yes, I encourage people to list their current job. Now, if you’ve been changing jobs every two months, for two years, you put an aggregate category like consultant, and you list the assignments underneath it, assuming that you’ve been a consultant during this time. But if you’ve been an employee who has been changing jobs every two months, for two years, you’ve got a problem there. But that isn’t the situation that you presented. You presented ‘list the current job in the resume or leave it off, since it might not reflect well on them if they’re looking to switch fields.’ And the magic word is fields on it. Once you’re changing careers, industries or what have you, I don’t think it’s a problem anymore. So by all means, put it on, and be prepared to answer questions about why you’re looking to change fields. What is it about the new field that sort of appeal to you? Because they will want to find out where you’re working? Firstly, they will want to find out where you’re working. So don’t hide it. Once you don’t share it, people think you’re hiding something. So don’t put yourself in that position.
13:52
As a manager, how do you prevent yourself from having favorite employees? What would make someone a favorite? Well, they do good work. You trust them. They’ve earned your trust because of their performance. Why wouldn’t you favor them? Why wouldn’t you treat them in a better way than other people? After all, when you think about it, let’s look at kids. You know, parents say ‘Oh, I love them. I love my kids equally.’ What a lie. There’s always someone who’s the preferred child. Even when the parent doesn’t say it, the child picks up on it. So how do you prevent yourself from having a favorite? Well, I would talk 
about acknowledging the positives in every person on your team. Do it publicly. Do acknowledge the good things that people do. People love to be praised if it’s deserving of praise. So, on your side of this, it will start to level the playing field. But I also come back to the tquestion of what’s wrong with having favorites when they’ve earned it. And earning it is the key. Teach people how to earn your trust, earn your respect, earn your admiration, so that they want to please you. It will be part of your relationship with them that will allow you to get great results, and model how to be successful in your organization because your staff, your team will talk to the new hires about the things that you like, and thus help you be more effective, because they want to please you. So I don’t buy into this ‘prevent yourself’ stuff. At best, you can encourage others to step up by praising them too. But ultimately, people have to earn your trust in order to be effective.
How to Answer “How Much Are You Looking For?”
16:00
How long does it take for a recruitment agency to get back to you after sending your CV and cover letter online? Well, it could be one minute, one hour, one day, one week, one month . . . you’re uploading a resume to what’s called the black hole. You may be filtered out by the systems because the system is not seeing words they’re looking for. What is there to look for? There’s a job or requirement unless you’re using the same terms, as in the job description, unless you’re using the same ones in your resume as exist in the job description, you’re not getting an interview. That’s just the reality. So I’ll just simply say it could take any amount of time. But as you heard me say earlier, if you were on earlier, there’s a timing factor involved, that allows you to …you suddenly go to your system and you go, ‘wow, that’s perfect.’ So make the fit obvious. You’re dealing with very busy people and agency recruiters have multiple jobs they’re working on concurrently. They’re trying to fill them and your job is to make the fit obvious. If you don’t make it obvious, you’re putting yourself at risk for rejection because the fact of the matter is, then the system is not seeing what it needs to to pass it on to the recruiter and you may get screened out by the system.
18:36
Do managers deserve more understanding? Oooh! From whom? From their staff? Absolutely. Absolutely. They deserve more support from their staff., without a doubt. They deserve the courtesy of being asked why decisions are made before someone becomes critical of them. Being a manager is a hard job. Everyone’s taking shots at you. Everyone thinks they can do it better until they’re in the seat and suddenly discover, ‘Gee, this thing of being a manager thing isn’t so easy.’ So, talk with them. Be supportive of them. They hired you. They deserve your loyalty and trust. And with that, they deserve the opportunity to pass on to you the things that they’ve learned. So do they deserve more understanding? Yes. And even if they haven’t earned it from you, you give it to them for a while, until, and I’m not talking about a week or a month, I’m talking about you share it with them for a while to see if …I’ll just simply say they deserve it, you give it. It’ll help them, it will help you because one day, you may be in their seat and you’ll have a full appreciation for some of the headaches of being a manager.
Stupid Resume Mistakes: Misconfigured Resumes
21:06
Is it easier for an employer to choose the best candidate for a job when a team of interviewers screens them rr when a one on one interview was
done? Why? I think you’ve got the wrong question here. You’re focusing on the medium of evaluation and I think in terms of the evaluation process itself, and the kind of questions that people ask who are in the position of interviewing. So think of it from the standpoint of what does someone need to know, in order to be qualified to do this job, and come up with questions that are going to evaluate everyone equally, to ensure that bias doesn’t get into the equation. I don’t care if it’s a panel interview or a one on one interview. Mistakes can be made in either venue, one on one or panel. So we know it’s not how the interviewing is done. It’s what’s asked. There’s a job description. There have been mental revisions of the job description. After all, you’ve discovered you don’t really need so much of this, you need more of that to use an example. Thus, you want to come up with questions that allow you to measure whether someone has the requisite knowledge, you want to ask everyone the same questions on this subject, in order to ensure that when someone is hired, they’re going to be qualified, interested and available to do this job.
22:52
Is it cheaper for an employer to keep its old employees than to hire young people? Well, the old expression is it’s six of one, a half a dozen of another, which translates into, it doesn’t really matter. Because from a cheapness standpoint, a younger employee may be more expensive, with indirect costs, like training them, teaching them what they need to know, in order to be effective in the role that the more experienced more expensive in salary person knows. So the long the short of it is, that shouldn’t be the criteria that you use. It’s can someone solve your problem. Do I trust them? And focus on those two elements? And good luck with your hires? Okay?
Stupid Resume Mistakes: No Months
24:00
I thought this next question was ridiculous, but I feel obligated to answer it. And the question is, is it even possible for a headhunter, with years of experience to wind up poor? I have to say this is not a bright question, because it’s not about how much they sell often but how much they spend. That’s an issue. I’ve known some remarkedly successful headhunters. I was one of them. And if you were a headhunter who overspent your income, you would eventually wind up poor. You make bad investments. You invest in the stock market that is heading down and the shares that you bought as options, suddenly, you’re losing money on them. In addition, you know, it’s not just investments. You’ve got medical issues as well, that cause a problem. So yes, successful recruiters can wind up being poor, just because they didn’t manage their money well, or circumstances got ahead.
25:17
And James is here. Ah, hi, coach, I’m happy to inform you I finally got a job offer, I was asked to fill in a background application form to run a background on me. I’m new in the country. Have not been able to navigate the system. This is my first job. Hope this will not work against my opportunity. It shouldn’t, because along the way, you’ve told them, ‘hey, I’m new in the country, interviewing here for my first job in the United States. I’m so looking forward to coming to work for your firm. And you might just contact the people who could give as a reference to make them aware that they might receive a contact from your firm, from this particular firm, wanting to check a reference. Tell them what to say in advance. Don’t leave it to them to say the right thing. Guide them to affirm what it is you told the company, and thus what they should tell the company so that they’re congruent. So James, congratulations, you’re on the homestretch. And, you know, I’ll make prayers for you that the references are completed quickly. And that you can start quickly. Ultimately, it is a question of how long it might take. If you’re on a visa, to transfer that visa. If you’re an H1b, no problem at all, you’ll be able to start pretty darn quickly. So I was meant to say a green card. If you have a green card, no issue whatsoever. You will be able to start quickly. So James, it shouldn’t be a problem. But just give the people that you provide as a reference an alert that they may be contacted to confirm that they knew you, how wonderful you were, what great work you did. And tell them some things that are positive that you shared with the employer. Okay. And good luck to you. And sorry, you’re not going to be on my calls all that often because you’re going to be working. But good luck to you.
27:40
The type of question ‘Don’t you know who I am’ seems rather an odd question to ask. What do you think? Who asks this kind of question? Well, normally, you hear this kind of a question from people who are arrogant and obnoxious. It comes across as you know who I am. And if you notice my tone of voice, I’m basically saying, ‘Are you an idiot?’ But sometimes it comes across or it’s asked because someone didn’t do their research in advance. And they’re talking to someone as if they are a mindless buffoon, when in point of fact, you may be speaking to a very senior, very accomplished person. I know there’s a group I meet with a weekly. And it’s men supporting men. And then we had a person join us who had moved to our area from the Pacific Northwest. And at one point, I was talking about something and he said, ‘Google me,’ because he was basically telling me, I’m accomplished. And I’m not an imbecile. I wasn’t talking to him like he was, but he wanted to let me know that he had been published. He was a university professor previously, he had written many books and articles, and was a successful person in his own right. So you know, I was meeting him after he retired. So I don’t know. He’s just new in the area. It’s my first time meeting him and he wants to let me know that he was a successful individual, too. So I’ll just simply say, the person who normally asked this question is someone who thinks that you’re treating them badly or being disrespectful to them. But it could also be used to do your research to know who I am, and what my role is with this firm. And as such, they’re annoyed with you, because you’ve signaled to them that you took this interview for granted, and thus, you’re not doing that well.
The Changing Power Dynamics in the Labor Market
30:13
What is the best way to follow up with a recruiter after they say they’re still reviewing resumes? Well, at the time of the interview, when you’re told this, I would say, ‘When do you think this process completes itself?’ ‘Later this week.’ ‘Great! And have you started interviewing anyone yet? Because if they started interviewing, that’s different. If they’ve started to interview, then they’re saying, ‘We’ve started our interview process, and we haven’t gotten through your resume, and we may never get to your resume.’ So I would follow up by saying, ‘And when do you think I should follow up with you just in case, I don’t hear from anyone? If it’s a rejection, that’s okay. I’ll take it off my follow up lists. But it could be something as simple as just ask them. That’s the simplest way to do it
31:50
I recently had four rounds of interviews for a position with NPR. I was told they’re just wrapping up. The talent manager said, I can reach out with questions in the interim. Can I follow up to check tomorrow? The interview was last Thursday. So as I’m recording this, it’s Tuesday. And I would follow up. Now I’d start off with a question or two about the role if you have them. Otherwise, you can simply start off by saying, ‘I apologize if this is seeming like I’m pushing. But I’m really excited about the role and I’m hoping to be chosen. I’m sure you can understand. Have you completed the interviews,’ and I would have confirmed when they’re due to complete the round of interviews when they pushed me off, when they said that we’re wrapping up. We don’t know when that was due to be. For all we know it’s tomorrow or this Friday. So confirm that they wrapped up the interviews. Ask them if they’ve come to a decision as to who they’re making an offer to. And from that if they said, ‘Oh, we’ve had such a tough choice!’ ‘Am I among the people that is being considered?’ Notice I’m trying to get as specificas I can, in order to ensure that I know what’s really going on? ‘We’re not sure.’ So when do you think you will be sure because I’m very anxious to join. I hope I’m chosen, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.’ They’ll guide you and that’ll help you. Okay
[svp]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fypKsBr6FZc[/svp]
Preparing for a Job Interview
ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter is a coach who worked as a recruiter for what seems like one hundred years. His work involves career coaching, as well as executive job search coaching, job coaching, and interview coaching. He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with over 2400 episodes.
Are you interested in 1:1 coaching, interview coaching, advice about networking more effectively, how to negotiate your offer or leadership coaching? People hire me to provide No BS career advice whether that is about a job search, hiring better, leadership, management or support with a workplace issue. Schedule a discovery call at my website, www.TheBigGameHunter.us
My courses are available on my website, www.TheBigGameHunter.us/courses The courses include ones about Informational Interviews, Interviewing, final interview preparation, salary negotiation mistakes to avoid, the top 10 questions to prepare for on any job interview, and starting a new job.
I do a livestream on LinkedIn, YouTube (on the JobSearchTV.com account) and on Facebook (on the Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter page) Tuesdays and Fridays at 1 PM Eastern. You can send your questions about job search, hiring better, management, leadership or to get advice about a workplace issue to me via messaging on LinkedIn or in chat during the approximately 30 minute show.
Classes On Skillshare https://thebiggamehunter.us/Skillshare
Freelancing or hiring a freelancer: fiverr.com https://thebiggamehunter.us/fiverr. or Freelancer: https://thebiggamehunter.us/freelance
To set up your freelance business correctly: incorporate https://thebiggamehunter.us/incorporate
Connect with me on LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/thebiggamehunter
Watch my videos on YouTube at JobSearchTV.com, the Job Search TV app for fireTV or a firestick or Bingenetworks.tv for Apple TV, and 90+ smart tv’s.
Thinking of making a career change and need some ideas that fit you. CareerFitter offers a free test and if you want more you can upgrade for the paid version.https://thebiggamehunter.us/Career
We grant permission for this post and others to be used on your website as long as a backlink is included and notice is provided that it is provided by Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter as an author or creator.
